MFI - to start IVF or wait 3 months?

[Pomegrat100]

I’m 37f and my husband is 38. We have MFI (1% morphology and 29% dna fragmentation - and that was a year ago, after months of supplements/ urologist appointments etc to improve it. Since then we have been deciding if we wanted to do IVF (I keep putting it off because I have severe anxiety around hospital situations) and we haven’t been living the healthiest lifestyle in that time - lots of takeaways, a few bottles of wine at the weekend, lack of exercise etc (we don’t smoke). But we have just had our first IVF consultation and our doctor seemed to think we should start quite soon - she said as soon as my next period we could begin.

My question is - do we put our start date on hold for 3 months so we can concentrate on getting my husbands sperm back on track (and my eggs!) and get on top of our supplements etc, or do we just jump in now and go for it (and obviously fix up our lifestyle and diet from now). We will be doing ICSI and PGTA. Part of me just wants to get going now, whilst we have momentum (because I’m worried if I leave it any longer I’ll end up too anxious to start - and also, I’m not getting any younger!), but we only have enough money for one round and if it doesn’t work I’ll then worry I’ll feel guilty for not waiting for 3 months to clean up our diets. Any advice for a newbie would be so helpful. Thank you 🙏🏽

Personally I would go for it, anything can happen and the increasing stress you could feel over time could impact too. We had similar results and have done a back up freeze for my husband so that’s something extra you could ask for so they have an extra back up sample should anything be off.
good luck! First stim today for me!

I personally would wait, I know 3 months feels like forever away but if it results in better quality embryos it's worth it! I went through the exact same thing in September, my partner has a varicocele procedure done and our doctor said to wait 6 months but I was desperate to go again as soon as possible, I already had in my head we would need to wait 3 months 6 just seemed impossible, anyway fast forward 6 months we ended up with 10 good graded embryos, our first round we had 1 poor grade so it felt like we had won the lottery, one of the first things I said to my partner was "wasn't it worth waiting" looking back now that time feels like nothing! I'd also recommend Impryl if not already using it :) best of luck what ever you decide x

Honestly I think if you are only planning one round you should wait and take the supplements. My husband has obstructive azoospermia (blockage stopping sperm coming out) and needed surgical sperm retrieval so we could use his frozen sperm. The first lot of sperm we retrieved surgically we used for two rounds of IVF and didn’t manage to get any day 5 blasts. He changed his lifestyle, healthy, no alcohol, no hot baths, no tight pants, supplements, and we did another surgical sperm retrieval a year later. We then had another two rounds of IVF using the new sperm and managed to get two blasts on each round.

If you decide to wait I’d recommend reading ‘It Starts with the Egg’ for her guidance on supplements xx

I had a failed round in april. We got no embryos. Husband and I both went on supplements and ate healthier and became a little more active and worked on our stress levels for 3 months and in July cycle we eneded up with 2 embryos, unfortunately our first embryo didnt work but transferring in september our last embryo so we are hopeful. I cant say for sure what we did made the changes from not having anything to transfer to then having 2 to transfer but I like to think we waited for a reason.

I’ve kind of been in this situation. My partner has severe MFI and was told to give it 3 months with supplements and change of lifestyle etc. retested after those 3 months and it was exactly the same. Has it been checked if he has a varicole? If there isn’t then I’d just go for it. Have you retested his sperm since last year? If not id retest. If there’s been no changes then go for it as there’s nothing much really he/you can do. X